152 N OBODY can even count all the factors that brought about the two Russian Revo- lutions of 1 91 7, and historians emphasize Cø(. the reasons that ac- cord with their own opinions. Still, practically everybody agrees that the personality of the last Romanov ruler, Nicholas II, was one reason-small, medium, or large-that modern Rus- sian history happened as it did. And so, too, because of her great influence on NIcholas, was the personality of his wife, the Empress Alexandra. This couple is the subject of an excellent biography, "NIcholas and Alexan- dra," by Robert K. Massie (Athe- neum), which pays specIal attention to a problem that dominated their exist- ence from 1904 until their assassina- tion, in 1918: they were the parents of a sick child, the hemophilic Crown Prince Alexis. Mr. Massie hecame in- terested in this unfortunate family when he and his wife discovered that their own son had hemophilia. One might forgive a biographer with such intimate experience of his subject's suf- ferings if he oversympathized. Massie does not, and he imparts relevant, and sometImes harrowing, clinical informa- tion with admirahle emotional restraint. The quality of his hook suggests- though never h) pedantic emphasis- its author's diligence. His task of paint- ing a douhle portrait was made easier because Nicholas and Alexandra were remarkably close; as much as human beings can, they united their lives. They had fallen in love when he was the timid son of th e powerful Alexander III and she was the beautiful, unworldly daughter of a Grand Duke of Hesse. Their love overcame his parents' ob- jections to her lower rank, and her own anxIety about renouncing Lutheran- ism for Russian Orthodoxy. Less than SIX lllonths after their engagement, Alexander III died-the year was 1894-and they married a week after the funeral. Nicholas was twenty-six and Alexandra twenty-two; they both knew several languages and had trav- elled (she had spent a lot of time in England with her grandmother, Queen Victoria), but neIther, in Massie's opin- ion, had been adequately prepared to run a country. (Not that there is a well-known course of preparation; Commodus, one of the worst of em- BOOKS Babes in the VVood perors, had the hest of educations from one of the best of men-his father, Marcus AurelIus-and as for train- ing autocrats, we find that today's usual un- or semi-constitutional republic is ruled by a self-made strong man whose parents and teachers never sus- pected that they were raising a future head of state. 1'he question of how or whether education can make a ruler must for the time being he classed with such issues as whether you can teach writing.) Nicholas did not grasp at or revel in the power he inherited. He an- nounced that he would maintain Rus- sia's historic autocracy, but, Massie says, the autocrat was himself ruled by his uncles. After the Revolution of ] 905, he was forced by circumstances (and by a cousin, the Governor of St. Pe- tersburg) to accept the establishment of a Duma, but his unauthoritative soul was not happy at sharing responsibility; he felt betrayed by his advisers Into unforeseeable and un- Russian courses. Even tuallv, Massie tells us-after two Dumas had been dissolved and the elec- torallaws hdd been changed to produce more conservative members-the Czar discovered some of the uses of a rudi- , .." t 01< ) ' .J J t (/1 /" t ...'! . '..... , \ J \Þ \ I \, l } \ J IV J .. -- ....-. / '\..,\C7 ( ì "' , </:, \ ^\ \ : ( / ... , ' , mentary parliament, but he failed to demonstrate this change of heart in any striking way. One wonders whether his support, decisively given, might not have enabled Russian liberalism to sur- vive. One wonders, too, whether Mas- sie, who wants to correct the revolu- tionaries' caricature of Nicholas as a bloody, unenlightened despot, has not slightly overstated the man's sympathy and understanding for parliamentary government and for the concept of a limited monarchy. Alexandra at first took little part in her husband's career beyond appearing at imperial ceremonies and official en- tertainments. She was shy and tactless Massie describes the speed with which she alienated the nobility of St. Peters- hurg by criticizing their manners, mor- als, and impiety. She breast-fed her five children and supervised their upbring- ing. The palace in Tsarskoe Selo, the suburb of the capital in which the fam- ily lived, Was not one where the power and personality of the ruler were con- stantly displayed, where awesome hos- pitality was widely offered, or where, day in and day out, the realm's nobles and notables were performIng political r n_ .: .. . ," V',;' _ J ':. 1 \, < , r: \ C 1 "ý . ^ ) -'S , , '^ , .. ; vi .0( l' y; " I. >> : ^ ' ".0 Jt it *"j 5t í "" "1 found out who he 1S) Esther. He)s a very avant-garde tnsurance salesman.')